Manchester Mayor-elect Joyce Craig says crafting a budget tops her priority list as the city’s 56th mayor. She also reflects on the historic nature of the election - being the first woman to hold the office.

“It feels great,” she tells NHPR’s Morning Edition.

“I have two daughters and we had a number of their friends working on our campaign. It’s wonderful for them to know that they have every opportunity to do anything they want and this is something they can strive for as well.”

The issues she raised on the campaign trail will be familiar themes of her administration, she says.

Craig promises an open dialogue. She says, “What we heard, loudly, is they’re looking for a change and their concerns focused on improving our schools, making our streets safer, bringing new businesses into the city, and really making progress on the opioid crisis.”

The mayor-elect notes that she is required to present a budget within the city’s tax cap, a limit on annual budget increases which voters approved in 2011. She says priorities include fighting the heroin, fentanyl, and opioid crisis, and ensuring students and teachers have resources to succeed.

Craig cited the value of public-private partnerships and efficiencies for writing the next budget. The annual budget is approximately $315 million, more than half of which is the Education budget. In Manchester, the mayor serves as chair of the school committee.

George and Maxine Maynard have what you might call a complicated relationship with New Hampshire's state motto.

And when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a controversial free speech case next month, the Maynards' decades-old legal battle over the state’s ubiquitous “Live Free or Die” will be back in the spotlight.

Manchester voters are being asked today which flag they’d like to see as the city’s official flag.

It’s a non-binding informational question. The next Board of Mayor and Aldermen can consider it, but it is not obligated to do anything based on today’s results. The flag question originated from a flag design contest.

NHPR asked Michael J. Skelton, president and CEO of the Greater Manchester Chamber, three questions about this flag project.

In the final Manchester mayoral debate, challenger Joyce Craig accused incumbent Ted Gatsas of failing to follow protocol when a 14-year-old student was raped at a high school in 2015.

The rape was not made public until earlier this year when the county prosecutor announced that Bryan Wilson, who was 17 at the time, was found guilty and sentenced to 10- to- 20 years for aggravated felonious sexual assault at West High School.